


Of Zombies and Men

by GinAndCats



Category: Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-18
Updated: 2014-04-18
Packaged: 2018-01-19 21:24:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1484584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GinAndCats/pseuds/GinAndCats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after George kills Lennie he Crooks and Candy live peacefully. That is, until one night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Zombies and Men

“You know it’s the anniversary.” George says as he irritably scrubs an old mug. He looks out the adjacent window. He looks out to the small vegetable patch, to the rolling golden hills and majestic oaks, to the grazing cows and sheep. He looks out to the rabbit hutch.  
“Huh? Anniversary of what? You ani’t married, are ya’ George?” Candy sweeps the wooden floor behind him. He focuses on the gentle scraping sound the broom makes. He puts down the mug, and somberly turns to the old man.  
“It’s the…” his chest aches, it hasn’t stopped aching since a year ago, “It’s the anniversary of when I killed Lennie.” The senior stares at him in a slightly confused way, though he hadn’t forgotten Lennie, he hadn’t exactly bothered to remember him either. He cracks a small smile and leans on his broom.  
“Yer a genius, ain’t ya’? Rememberin’ the exact date an all. You’re really something.” He goes back to sweeping. George returns to the washing, disappointed that his proclamation didn’t get the appropriate response. He takes a deep breath, though his lungs feel congested. He thought Candy would care the most, but the man has grown somewhat senile in his old age, and just smiles at everything. But he was the closest to Lennie, besides George.  
Crooks would never show that he cared, what with his cold exterior and all.  
“God dammit!” Crooks limps into the room, George hears his clumping walk before he sees him. “Lennie’s sick, George.” George drops the plate he was drying and turns around, for a second forgetting that he’s talking about an animal.  
“Which Lennie?” George demands, he walks a few paces towards Crooks, his brow furrows in concern. Crooks sighs, running his hand over his balding head tiredly.  
“You know George…” He gives his house mate a sympathetic glance, lowering his hand. He looks tired, and somewhat disappointed. “You don’t have to name every animal you get after Lennie.”  
George looks away, trying to be stoic. “I don’t,” his voice is edging on a whisper, “I only name the soft ones after him.”  
A hand touches George’s shoulder, he looks up and meets the older man’s eyes. He’s close, George can hear him breathing. “He’s gone George, you’ve got to move on, get a wife, have some kids.”  
George feels an intense heat where Crooks touches him. A man that says things like that has no right to touch him. He knows that he’s being unreasonable, but he doesn’t care. George roughly pushes the hand from his shoulder. In a cold tone he says, “That’s not an option, it never has been,” he goes to find the sick pet, and as an afterthought turns around and adds, “Bastard.”  
***  
George squints at the sun, it lies in the west sky. It’ll be dark soon. He approaches the rabbit hutch, taking small steps like he always does. He clenches his fists around the alfalfa he holds. He hates doing this, he hates taking Lennies place. But he also won’t let anyone else do it.  
He imagines Lennies loping walk, he imagines it going towards the hutch, his arms full with daisies and alfalfa, smiling like the crazy bastard he is. He imagines Lennie opening the hutch, fumbling with the lock because his hands are so full. He’d give the rabbits too much food, but it’d be okay. Then he’d pet the rabbits, starting with the white one with brown ears and ending with the pure black one. ‘Don’t be too rough’ George would remind him, ‘I won’t George’ he’d say back. Oh what he’d give to hear Lennies voice again, it’d be make his day. No, his life.  
Georges eyes start tearing up and he stops thinking about Lennie immediately. He can’t let the others see him cry. He can’t let anyone see him cry.  
He feeds the rabbits without another thought.  
***  
George sits on his bed, holding Lennie’s favorite hat. He hasn’t gotten over his death, and this day marks the one year anniversary. He killed Lennie, with the two hands that now hold his favorite hat, he pulled the trigger. George still wakes up in a cold sweat from nightmares of it. He allows himself to cry now, the others think he’s asleep.  
He hears a loud knocking sound and assumes it’s the dog. But the assumption is proved wrong within two minutes.  
He hears something he hasn’t heard in a long while. A desperate scream. It’s high and low at the same time. The one screaming does not stop for breath. The sheer volume of it causes George’s bones to ache. He wants to get up to see what’s happening but he’s too mesmerized by the sound. It doesn’t sound human, it’s derived from animal instinct. It’s scratchy, like nails on a chalkboard. The screamer bellows and bellows for what seems like an eternity. And then, nothing.  
The silence is almost worse than the howls. What has caused them to stop? Did someone die? He slowly stands, his heart racing. He can hear his own heartbeat.  
Suddenly Candy and Crooks burst into his room, breaking the spell of silence.  
Blood gushes from a cut on Crooks’ head, exposed skull a stark white against the almost black blood. One eye is swollen shut, already adorned with purples and yellows. He sees more bone, this time on Candy. His hand swings from a strand of sinew, limp. Blood drips onto his floor, making gruesome patterns and pictures. George doesn’t know what to say. Fear of what did this to him paralyses his entire being.  
Another roar is heard, this time-if it is even possible- it is louder. Somehow, closer. They stand quiet, he can almost smell the fear.  
The roar is silenced again and George takes this absence of noise to voice a question,  
“What did this?” he says it slow, and just above a whisper. The ones supposed to answer just shake their heads, already too weak from blood loss to speak.  
George hears a stomping sound. Heavier than any he’s ever heard. The stomping gets closer, and brasher, drowning out even his own thoughts. Hands reach out from the doorway and grab Crooks head, before George can shout a warning, a loud crack is heard. Like the breaking of a dry branch. George sees the light go out of Crooks eyes, he hears his last breath. He reaches out, to hold onto nothing in particular. He clenches his fist and musters up the strength to look at his friend’s killer.  
His eyes open wide, and he breaths a single name.  
“Lennie.”  
It was Lennie. He was standing right there. But he was….wrong.  
His skin was a dirty greenish color, like the moss that floats on the small pond in the back. His body was half decomposed, stinking of dirt and death. His ribs exposed, but nowhere near white. What’s left of his organs hang from where his stomach should be. Maggots crawl over every laceration and hole, they mostly come from his right eye, if you could call it that anymore. He smiles a nearly toothless grin, like a horrific Cheshire cat.  
George stumbles back, knowing over his lamp. He says again,  
“Lennie.”  
Candy grabs a gun from George’s closet with the stubs of his arms, he wedges his exposed bone against the trigger, rendering the gun usable. He doesn’t shoot yet. He hesitates, knowing that even in this state it is not his place to shoot Lennie.  
Lennie takes a step forward, George tenses. He speaks, in a hoarse, slurred voice.  
“George, George, I-I wanted to see you.” George’s heart leaps and plummets at those words. He can’t even imagine how this could happen, of course he’d dreamed of it. But not like this, never like this. “The-the man George, he said I could see you again. I missed you.”  
Lennie suddenly lunges forward and grabs George into a sort of hug. The stench is over whelming, maggots fall onto Georges face. He clenches his mouth closed, not wanting to swallow any. Candy shouts,  
“Should I shoot?!” George shakes his head and grabs onto Lennie. He doesn’t care if he’s like this. Lennie is back. He’s back. He is finally back.  
“No!” He can’t. “No, I can’t watch him die again!” he can’t do it. “Don’t shoot him, god dammit!” he cries, like a river, like a waterfall, like the rain. Candy stands in shock, not whether to follow George’s order or not. Like a statue, he stands in eternal fright.  
Lennie repeats over and over “Can I tend the rabbits George?” Over and over and over again. It fills Georges mind, rabbits and Lennie and love and home and rabbits.  
Lennie’s grip gets tighter and tighter, restricting his breathing. George feels faint, he can’t breathe now. Candy says nothing, as George dies right before him, he doesn’t shoot.  
“Can I tend the rabbits George?”  
“Yes.”


End file.
